While I thank Anartaxius for his creative submission, I think he has the
Blinding Light Church of the Presumptuous Assumption (a product of that holy
alliance known as the Firesign Theater) with another congregation of somewhat
lesser worth and notoriety. Also, although Xeno means well, the honorary title
of Pastor ("He who leadeth the sheep to the fleecing") is neither to be
confused with the lesser title of Pester ("He who merely annoyeth the sheep by
poking them") or even Fester ("He who poketh the sheep so often that their
wounds become infected and smelly"). Here is an example of the latter:
As for that other Hume-boy he's talking about, how can you trust anyone who
spells words like 'vigor' and 'color' as 'vigour' and 'colour'? He's obviously
some kinda furriner, probably from Scorpionland, and thus possibly evil. Even
though evil doesn't exist.
From: "anartax...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2015 4:22 AMSubject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Could it
be...Satan?
jr_esq, Barry's job is not 'pastor', it's more like 'pester'. It is a
highly dignified profession, the exact opposite of what a 'pastor' does
(enlightenment, in other words, is a great undoing, undoing what pastors try to
do). Barry writes quickly, but sometimes he makes minor spelling errors, due to
haste, hence he meant to say 'Pester Barry of the Grinding Might Lurch of the
Voluptuous Resumption (more details of the church can be found online at
http://tinyurl.com/ygvf8zb as part of of the complete training required to
become a true teacher of TM in all things. Of course Barry has eschewed this
learning as he has moved on, leaving with the current crop of followers of M to
carry on this tradition).
Whether or not free will exists, it is not necessary to choose between good and
evil because those concepts are simply in the imagination of human beings. In
the world, there is only what happens, it is neither good nor bad. The mind
maps such concepts like good and evil onto the world, but they are not real,
but they may seem real to a mind that is unclear about the relationship of
thought to what happens in the world.
Here is a great explanation of how that happens (David Hume 1689):
OF THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.
11.Every one will readily allow, that there is a considerable difference
between the perceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of excessive
heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his
memory this sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination. These faculties
may mimic or copy the perceptions of the senses; but they never can entirely
reach the force and vivacity of the original sentiment. The utmost we say of
them, even when they operate with greatest vigour, is, that they represent
their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or see it:
But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive
at such a pitch of vivacity, as to render these perceptions altogether
undistinguishable. All the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint
natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real
landskip [landscape]. The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest
sensation.
We may observe a like distinction to run through all the other perceptions of
the mind. A man in a fit of anger, is actuated in a very different manner from
one who only thinks of that emotion. If you tell me, that any person is in
love, I easily understand your meaning, and form a just conception of his
situation; but never can mistake that conception for the real disorders and
agitations of the passion. When we reflect on our past sentiments and
affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but
the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in
which our original perceptions were clothed. It requires no nice discernment or
metaphysical head to mark the distinction between them.
12.Here therefore we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two
classes or species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force
and vivacity. The less forcible and lively are commonly denominated Thoughts or
Ideas. The other species want a name in our language, and in most others; I
suppose, because it was not requisite for any, but philosophical purposes, to
rank them under a general term or appellation. Let us, therefore, use a little
freedom, and call them Impressions; employing that word in a sense somewhat
different from the usual. By the term impression, then, I mean all our more
lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire,
or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less
lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those
sensations or movements above mentioned.
13.Nothing, at first view, may seem more unbounded than the thought of man,
which not only escapes all human power and authority, but is not even
restrained within the limits of nature and reality. To form monsters, and join
incongruous shapes and appearances, costs the imagination no more trouble than
to conceive the most natural and familiar objects. And while the body is
confined to one planet, along which it creeps with pain and difficulty; the
thought can in an instant transport us into the most distant regions of the
universe; or even beyond the universe, into the unbounded chaos, where nature
is supposed to lie in total confusion. What never was seen, or heard of, may
yet be conceived; nor is any thing beyond the power of thought, except what
implies an absolute contradiction.
But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find,
upon a nearer examination, that it is really confined within very narrow
limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than
the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the
materials afforded us by the senses and experience. When we think of a golden
mountain, we only join two consistent ideas, gold, and mountain, with which we
were formerly acquainted. A virtuous horse we can conceive; because, from our
own feeling, we can conceive virtue; and this we may unite to the figure and
shape of a horse, which is an animal familiar to us. In short, all the
materials of thinking are derived either from our outward or inward sentiment:
the mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will. Or, to
express myself in philosophical language, all our ideas or more feeble
perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones.
14.To prove this, the two following arguments will, I hope, be sufficient.
First, when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime, we
always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied
from a precedent feeling or sentiment. Even those ideas, which, at first view,
seem the most wide of this origin, are found, upon a nearer scrutiny, to be
derived from it. The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise,
and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and
augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom. We may
prosecute this enquiry to what length we please; where we shall always find,
that every idea which we examine is copied from a similar impression. Those who
would assert that this position is not universally true nor without exception,
have only one, and that an easy method of refuting it; by producing that idea,
which, in their opinion, is not derived from this source. It will then be
incumbent on us, if we would maintain our doctrine, to produce the impression,
or lively perception, which corresponds to it.
15.Secondly. If it happen, from a defect of the organ, that a man is not
susceptible of any species of sensation, we always find that he is as little
susceptible of the correspondent ideas. A blind man can form no notion of
colours; a deaf man of sounds. Restore either of them that sense in which he is
deficient; by opening this new inlet for his sensations, you also open an inlet
for the ideas; and he finds no difficulty in conceiving these objects. The case
is the same, if the object, proper for exciting any sensation, has never been
applied to the organ. A Laplander or Negro has no notion of the relish of wine.
And though there are few or no instances of a like deficiency in the mind,
where a person has never felt or is wholly incapable of a sentiment or passion
that belongs to his species; yet we find the same observation to take place in
a less degree. A man of mild manners can form no idea of inveterate revenge or
cruelty; nor can a selfish heart easily conceive the heights of friendship and
generosity. It is readily allowed, that other beings may possess many senses of
which we can have no conception; because the ideas of them have never been
introduced to us in the only manner by which an idea can have access to the
mind, to wit, by the actual feeling and sensation.
16.There is, however, one contradictory phenomenon, which may prove that it is
not absolutely impossible for ideas to arise, independent of their
correspondent impressions. I believe it will readily be allowed, that the
several distinct ideas of colour, which enter by the eye, or those of sound,
which are conveyed by the ear, are really different from each other; though, at
the same time, resembling. Now if this be true of different colours, it must be
no less so of the different shades of the same colour; and each shade produces
a distinct idea, independent of the rest. For if this should be denied, it is
possible, by the continual gradation of shades, to run a colour insensibly into
what is most remote from it; and if you will not allow any of the means to be
different, you cannot, without absurdity, deny the extremes to be the same.
Suppose, therefore, a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to
have become perfectly acquainted with colours of all kinds except one
particular shade of blue, for instance, which it never has been his fortune to
meet with. Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one,
be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest; it
is plain that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting, and will
be sensible that there is a greater distance in that place between the
contiguous colours than in any other. Now I ask, whether it be possible for
him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and raise up to
himself the idea of that particular shade, though it had never been conveyed to
him by his senses? I believe there are few but will be of opinion that he can:
and this may serve as a proof that the simple ideas are not always, in every
instance, derived from the correspondent impressions; though this instance is
so singular, that it is scarcely worth our observing, and does not merit that
for it alone we should alter our general maxim.
17.Here, therefore, is a proposition, which not only seems, in itself, simple
and intelligible; but, if a proper use were made of it, might render every
dispute equally intelligible, and banish all that jargon, which has so long
taken possession of metaphysical reasonings, and drawn disgrace upon them. All
ideas, especially abstract ones, are naturally faint and obscure: the mind has
but a slender hold of them: they are apt to be confounded with other resembling
ideas; and when we have often employed any term, though without a distinct
meaning, we are apt to imagine it has a determinate idea annexed to it. On the
contrary, all impressions, that is, all sensations, either outward or inward,
are strong and vivid: the limits between them are more exactly determined: nor
is it easy to fall into any error or mistake with regard to them. When we
entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed
without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), we need but enquire, from
what impression is that supposed idea derived? And if it be impossible to
assign any, this will serve to confirm our suspicion. By bringing ideas into so
clear a light we may reasonably hope to remove all dispute, which may arise,
concerning their nature and reality.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote :
Pastor Barry,
Do you believe that human beings have a free will to choose between good and
evil?
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
Here's my theory about Satan, Old Nick, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, or
whatever you choose to call Him/It. Be warned. :-)
Basically, as I see it, no such entity as Satan exists, just as no such entity
as God exists. Satan is just something that believers in God thought up to
cover their own philosophical short-sightedness.
See, once these believers had invented a God who creates everything and runs
everything according to His cosmic plan, they suddenly realized that they'd
boxed themselves in and created a kind of nightmare for themselves. If, as they
had already taught all their believer-followers, God runs *everything*, then
*He* is the one responsible for child cancer, busloads of the faithful going
over a cliff while on pilgrimage, floods, earthquakes and plagues that kill
millions of innocent people, and well...just evil in general. If you actually
believe that God *controls* all of these things, or worse *plans* all of this,
then you pretty much have to admit that He's a psychotic thug.
So to *avoid* having to admit that they had invented PsychoThug God, believers
came up with the Other Guy -- Satan -- someone they could blame for all of the
shitty things they don't want to attribute to God.
This is the kind of convoluted logic people get into once they try to invent a
God and claim that He controls everything. Someone points out that you just
stated that God controls what you consider evil just as much as He controls
what you consider good, and your philosophy is fucked. So you invent a new
imaginary character and "amend" your philosophy so it reads, "OK, God controls
everything...uh...*except* for that stuff we don't like...Satan controls that."
Now you know.
[ The preceding sermon was brought to you by Pastor Barry of the Blinding Light
Church of the Presumptuous Assumption ]
:-)
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